Venezia

MJ and I set off, after respective demanding weeks, from Stansted to Treviso for a bit of RnR La Serenissima style. Made it in pretty good time, all things considered, to Ponte Santa Lucia and our hostel.

A quick Duo Panini Por Favore, a glass of Valpolicella, and a packet of Italian twisties and

Up bright'n'early, first espressos for the day and onto a vaporetto.

Woohoo! Boats and stuff!

The water levels were definitely higher than when i was last in Venice in 99. Not quite acqua alta but just about.

The Biennale was still on so we headed over to Giardini to check that out.

Italian pavilion:

Had a lookee at the Australian pavilion:

Cool to see a reference to Kellerberrin wheatbelt town near where my grandparents had a farm (and where Dad was born!).

Headed back into the centre of the touristy action:

then to Accademia where we amused ourselves in the queue with some pistachio cake - hey baby, you're the real work of art!

then to the Guggenheim

where peggy was kind enough to say hi to us in the gift shop.

After a bit of regrouping and dinner in Cannaregio, we made our way back towards Dorsoduro to see a Vivaldi concert in an old church:

Very splendid, and sufficiently culturally virtuous that we could justify a few cocktails in San Polo before bedtime.

Next morning we vaporettoed out to the Murano to look at a very large amount of glass, ranging from the supercool to the megatacky.

Back to the main city, I semi-successfully navigated us straight to the Ca Pesaro, which we'd previously spied from the Canal Grande:

Terrestrial aspect is more like this:

Had a very nice lunch: authentic Venetian dish, cuttlefish in squid-ink sauce with white polenta.

Strolled along the main tourist route, across the Rialto towards San Marco.

Realised we'd both left our Biennale tickets in our bags in the lockers at Ferrovia, so we couldn't check out the other half of the show. Substituted this with molto authentico Birra Morreti,

and had a wander around Arsenale then vaporettoed back to the train station.

Whilst having a last glass of vino at a cafe we managed to get involved in a conversation with some fellow Australian travellers. Their story about going on a gondola (pah, how cliched...) was so incredibly boring that MJ and I both fell asleep with our eyes open. When we jolted awake, time had run away from us, and a madcap dash was required to get to Piazzale Roma before our bus left. Made it and sweated profusely all the way to Treviso airport.

MJ pulled off a brilliant queue-jumping blag at the airport "Oh, i've been in an accident recently and my leg's quite injured, and he's my carer, so can we come on with the people with babies?"
2001 is pretty recent. And I'm a good carer.